Romans 15:14-21

Paul never just says “personal stuff.”  He is ever exercising his calling and authority as is evident in today’s passage.  He speaks well of the church in Rome (v14-16), but in those words he encourages us to walk with Christ.  He reports on his ministry (v17-21), and yet challenges us to serve Christ faithfully.

Paul doesn’t speak of faith, hope and love, the normal qualities he seeks in a church.  Instead he notes the maturity of the church at Rome.  They were:

·        Full of goodness: Perhaps Paul is thinking of Ch. 12 and the good things believers share with each other in exercising their spiritual gift.  He concludes by calling them to “overcome evil with good.”

·        Filled with all knowledge: Paul is aware of their knowledge of the major topics in this letter.  As he says in 15:15, he wrote to remind them. 

·        Able to admonish one another: Perhaps he is thinking of the passage on the weak brother (14:1-15:7).  Admonishing is the complement of teaching (Col. 1:28 “warning” is the same Greek word, noutheteo).  It means to “put in mind,” meaning they could take what they knew and exhort one another to think about it and put it into practice.  This is a church’s ministry according to Heb. 10:24-25.  They could do this generally but needed a reminder.

Paul sent this letter as part of his responsibilities as an apostle, or more specifically, the “minister (Grk. leitourgos, worship leader; good ministry leads others to worship God through their lives) of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles.”

Paul himself worships (glorifies) Christ in his ministry.  He makes note of the things of God (v17) which Christ has accomplished through (him) (v18) as he has preached the gospel and as the Gentiles have been obedient to the gospel (to believe is to obey the gospel; Rom. 1:5; 6:17; 16:26).  Paul always speaks of his ministry with humility (2 Cor. 10:1; 12:6-10).  But having been given authority as an apostle his ministry was accompanied by “mighty signs and wonders” (Mark 3:13-15; Heb. 2:3-4).  Note that the apostle did not compliment the church for the presence of signs and wonders.  Undoubtedly there were people healed in answer to prayer (James 5:13-18).  But the ongoing life of the church was not to be a constant display of signs and wonders; these things accompanied the ministry of the apostles in the revealing of the mystery of God.  

Paul’s ministry was a pioneer ministry, preaching the gospel in places where there were no churches.  He could report that he had preached from Jerusalem to Illyricum (an area of northern Greece across the Adriatic Sea from Italy.)  Yet Paul still desired to lead worship (preach and exhort) in Rome (1:11-15).

So let us consider: in our church do we see goodness, people coming to the knowledge of the truth, and the nouthetic ministry by which we spur each other to love and good works?  May we yield ourselves to Christ as living sacrifices that we might glorify Him in our lives and ministry.